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To: Almondjoy

Russia needs hard cash and their arms exports are lucrative. Being a capitalist society makes it even easier for them to justify.

The question isn't "Why are they selling them when we asked them not to" the question is "How do we make it more advantageous/profitable to them not to..."


10 posted on 02/16/2005 1:44:05 PM PST by Androcles
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To: Androcles

If Russia's weapons sales are purely for economic reasons, as you seem to suggest, why are their weapons sales always to countries that are enemies of the United States??

Do you seriously believe that Russia sees no strategic considerations to counter the US with these arms sales?? Is everything just about hard currency?? And even if it is, what's your point?? Even if you are right and their motives are purely economic, the net result is that they get more hard currency with which to put back into new weapons and they thwart US strategic aims in the region at the same time.

Russia makes excellent weapons that are world class and on par, if not better than many US systems, despite their sob stories and Potemkin explanations regarding their "poverty and backwardness." These are weapons systems that even wealthy nations would love to have. If your theory is correct, why aren't the Russians offering to sell their highest quality, top of the line weapons to nations with some real ability to pay top price, like Great Britain, or even the US?? If everything is just about how much money they can get and "weapons sales are so yesterday" as another poster said, why not just sell their best stuff to us and other western allies?? No restrictions, nothing. If their concerns are economic, they whouldn't have any security concerns whatsoever with selling their very top of the line weapons, even to the US.

Why is it so hard to believe that Russia has geostrategic interests that are counter to the United States and they are pursuing them like any other nation?? And we should pursue our interests which run counter to Russia's. That is the way the world works because States have competing interests. Any world that is made up of sovereign States has geostrategic conflict that goes beyond mere economics, even if that is "so yesterday dude." Deal with it. It may not fit some Utopian Economic Paridise scheme, but its reality.

John.


21 posted on 02/17/2005 1:16:33 AM PST by JohnOG ( Russia and China are our strategic enemies, not our strategic partners)
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